f 


THE  TRUE  IDEA  OF  FEMALE  EDUCATION. 


AN  ADDRESS 


DELIVERED    AT    PITTSFIELD,    MASS., 


THE  YOUNG  LADIES'  INSTITUTE, 


AT  ITS  ANNUAL  COMMENCEMENT,  AUGUST  22,  1855. 


BY 


JAMES  R.  SPALDING. 


|nblbljcb  bg  rrqmsi. 


NEW  YORK: 
JOHN  F.  TROW,  PRINTER,  53  ANN-STREET. 

1855. 


I 


THE  TRUE  IDEA  OF  FEMALE  EDUCATION. 


AN  ADDRESS 


DELIVERED    AT    PITTSFIELD,    MASS., 


THE  YOUNG  LADIES'  INSTITUTE, 


AT  ITS  ANNUAL  COMMENCEMENT,  AUGUST  22,  1855. 


JAMES  R.  SPALDING. 


|teblis|jtb  bg  nqtwat. 


NEW  YORK: 
JOHNF.  TROW,PEINTER,  53  ANN-STREET 

1855. 


iAf VftRO  COLLfGf  LIBRARY 

BY  EXCHANGE 
i.   ri'fcUC  LIEMABY) 

1942 


Stael? 
Annex 


ALC 


ADDRESS. 


For  woman  is  not  undevelopt  man, 

But  diverse  ;  could  we  make  her  aa  the  man, 

Sweet  love  were  slain,  whose  dearest  bond  is  this, — 

Not  like  to  like,  but  like  in  difference  : 

Yet  in  the  long  years  liker  must  they  grow  ; 

The  man  be  more  of  woman,  she  of  man ; 

He  gain  in  sweetness,  and  in  moral  height, 

Nor  lose  the  wrestling  thews  that  throw  the  world  ; 

She  mental  breadth  ;  nor  fail  in  childward  care  ; 

More  as  the  double-natured  poet  each  ; 

Till  at  the  last  she  set  herself  to  man, 

Like  perfect  music  unto  noble  words. 

And  fo  these  twain,  upon  the  skirts  of  Time, 

Sit  side  by  side,  full-summed  in  all  their  powers, 

Dispensing  harvest,  sowing  the  To-be 

Self-reverent  each,  and  reverencing  each, 

Distinct  in  individualities, 

But  like  each  other,  e'en  as  those  who  love. 

I  trust  that  all  present  both  comprehend  and  feel 
the  truth,  as  well  as  the  beauty,  of  these  words  of  the 
first*  of  living  poets.  It  is  my  purpose  to  say  something 
upon  the  distinctive  process  of  female  education — a  dis- 
tinctive process  arising  from  a  diversity  in  organization, 
and  in  sphere ;  and  yet  I  cannot  consent  to  enter  into 
any  formal  argument,  to  prove  that  feminine  nature  is 
not  identical  with  masculine  nature,  or  to  determine  the 

*  Tennyson. 


865545 


superiority  of  either  the  one  or  the  other,  in  the  scale 
of  existence.  They  are  both  correlative,  each  peculiar, 
and  yet  each  made  for  the  other ;  both  sharing  in  com- 
mon elements  of  being  under  different  modifications, 
and  each  possessing  powers,  the  developing  and  har- 
monizing of  which  are  necessary  to  the  realization  of  the 
ideal  type  of  the  race. 

My  very  soul  is  sickened  at  the  antagonistic  spirit  so 
often  displayed  in  upholding  what  are  called  the  rights 
of  woman.  It  profanes  the  sex ;  it  affronts  high  Heaven. 
Man  and  woman  are  co-workers  here  on  earth,  and  co- 
heirs of  immortality.  Each  gives  the  other  the  precedence 
on  the  score  of  high  nobility,  and  each  counts  it  a  glory 
to  learn  of  the  other.  The  emancipation  of  woman  ! 
Strange  words  these,  for  a  Christian  land.  The  time,  I 
know,  has  been,  when  woman  was  a  delicate  toy,  a  pas- 
sive instrument,  a  petted  slave ;  but  that  time  ended 
when  first  her  baptism  in  Christian  faith  and  love  began. 
She  whom  the  wisdom  of  hoary  antiquity  deemed  too 
weak  to  act  as  witness  to  a  dying  man's  will,  was  called 
upon  to  give  her  testimony  to  the  cause  of  God.  From 
the  palace  and  the  cottage,  gathered  from  all  ranks, 
made  up  of  all  ages,  matrons  grave  with  years,  young 
mothers  with  clinging  infants,  virgins  tender  and  pure 
as  the  maid-mother  of  Him  they  adored,  calmly  and 
cheerfully  bore  the  horrid  penalties  of  the  faith  that 
was  in  them.  Mangled  and  gored  by  wild  cattle,  torn 
by  savage  beasts,  mutilated  and  hacked  piecemeal  by 
the  executioner,  their  flesh  rent  by  scourges,  their  spirit 
more  deeply  agonized  still  by  that  last  refinement  of 
the  praetor's  cruelty,  exposure  in  the  public  street 
to  the  mocking  indignities  of  the  populace — thus  did 
this  holiest  army  of  martyrs  lift  up  their  spotless  sacri- 
fice to  God,  and  then  it  was  that  the  misprised  name  of 


woman  was  redeemed  once  and  for  ever  from  the  dese- 
cration of  the  past,  and  she  stood  forth  before  the  world 
an  immortal  creature,  made  to  serve  and  glorify  God, 
a  spiritual  being,  with  spiritual  faculties,  for  spiritual 
ends.  From  that  time  she  has  been  morally  free — free 
in  the  line,  and  to  the  extent,  that  her  own  regenerated 
will  required  and  sanctioned ;  free  to  aspire 

tlnto  the  calms  and  magnanimities, 
The  lofty  uses,  and  the  noble  ends, 
The  sanctified  devotion  and  full  work. 
To  which  she  is  elect  for  evermore.* 

Assured  then,  by  Christianity,  of  her  solemn  respon- 
sibilities and  high  destinies,  it  is  not  only  the  privilege 
but  the  duty  of  woman  to  secure  the  just  and  full  de- 
velopment of  her  own  proper  nature,  and  thus  fit  her- 
self most  completely  for  her  own  appropriate  sphere. 
The  process  of  effecting  this  is  nothing  more  or  less 
than  Female  Education. 

Now,  it  is  very  easy,  in  considering  the  different 
phases  of  nature  in  man  and  woman,  to  say,  as  Milton 
did  of  Adam  and  Eve — 

For  contemplation  he  and  valor  formed  ; 
For  softness  she,  and  sweet  attractive  grace,  f 

For  it  is  very  easy  to  see  that  the  reflective  faculties 
generally  predominate  in  man,  and  the  affective  in 
woman,  and  that  energy  marks  the  one,  and  sensibility 
the  other.  This  answers  well  enough  in  its  way  for  a 
running  distinction,  but  it  will  be  very  apt  to  deceive 
us,  if  we  forget  the  essential  unity  of  the  human  soul, 
and  take  the  reigning  element  as  an  exclusive  possession 
and  power.  Woman,  to  be  woman,  must  reflect  as  well 

*  Mrs.  Barrett.     Drama  of  Exile, 
f  Paradise  Lost.    Book  IV. 


6 

as  feel ;  and  man,  to  be  man,  must  feel  as  well  as  reflect. 
Thought  and  feeling  stand  reciprocally  in  need  of  each 
other,  in  the  work  of  developing  character.  As  thought 
gains  new  life  and  animation  from  the  rich  feeling,  with 
its  quick,  tender  and  profound  movements  of  the  soul, 
deriving  therefrom  its  vital  nourishment  and  sustenance ; 
even  so,  the  feelings  are  not  unfrequently  first  awak- 
ened, and  very  often  strengthened  and  elevated,  by  the 
lofty  flight  of  thought,  in  its  bold  and  searching  inqui- 
ries. The  mind  of  woman  differs  from  that  of  man, 
chiefly  in  its  being  more  imbued  with  feeling,  and  thus 
more  delicately  knit  together,  more  harmoniously  ad- 
justed, and  more  keenly  vivified,  while  man's  mind  is 
fitted  for  a  more  daring  and  a  more  abstract,  a  wider 
and  a  cooler  range.  It  is  a  common  remark,  that 
woman  excels  in  tact.  Yet  what  is  tact,  but  the  judg- 
ment of  feeling,  controlling  outward  action..  We  hear, 
too,  that  the  opinions  of  woman  are  rather  intuitions 
than  logical  conclusions.  Yet  what  are  her  intuitions, 
but  the  instantaneous  impressions  made  upon  her  entire 
nature,  sympathetic  as  well  as  sentient. 

It  is  this  difference  in  the  higher  nature  of  the  sexes 
— thought  predominating  in  the  one,  and  feeling  in  the 
other — and  the  natural  affinity  of  thought  and  feeling, 
their  tendency  towards  a  living  intercommunion,  that 
gave  so  much  force  and  truth  to  the  old  philosophical 
idea,  that  each  sex  finds  in  the  other  the  psychological 
complement  of  its  own  being  and  character,  and  that 
it  is  the  attraction  between  the  two  which  gives  the 
charm  to  all  social  intercourse,  and  their  perfect  and 
permanent  union,  through  the  assimilating  power  of 
love,  that  makes  man  and  wife  ONE — something  more 
than  a  harmony,  a  completed  unity.  It  would  not  be- 
come me,  perhaps,  to  be  very  absolute  on  this  subject, 


but  I  cannot  help  marking  the  perfect  accordance  of 
this  Platonic  idea,  with  that  account  of  the  spiritual 
structure  of  our  humanity,  given  in  the  first  chapter  of 
Genesis — "  So  God  created  man  in  His  own  image,  in 
the  image  of  God  created  He  him ;  male  and  female 
created  He  them,"  the  idea  of  duality  here  being  en- 
tirely merged  in  that  of  unity.  It  is  a  truth  too  often 
forgotten,  that  what  is  called  the  subordination  of  one 
sex  to  the  other  was  a  result  not  of  their  original  cre- 
ation, but  of  their  subsequent  fall.  It  had  its  rise  in 
the  curse  pronounced  upon  the  woman,  "  Thy  desire 
shall  be  to  thy  husband,  and  he  shall  rule  over  thee." 
But  the  fall,  though  it  corrupted  the  will,  and  darkened 
and  confused  our  whole  nature,  did  not  destroy  any  of 
the  primal  elements  of  our  being,  and  the  ideal  type  of 
the  race  yet  remains. 

These  truths  being  justly  apprehended,  the  term 
Education  as  applied  to  woman  at  once  assumes  its  full 
significance.  She  is  not,  any  more  than  man,  a  thing 
to  be  made  up  for  a  certain  end — not  to  be  fitted  out 
simply  for  marriage,  any  more  than  he  is  to  be  fitted 
out  simply  for  a  profession.  In  an  old  Latin  treatise  of 
St.  Bernard  is  the  following  admirable  passage :  "  There 
are  those  who  wish  to  know,  for  the  mere  sake  of  know- 
ing ;  this  is  a  low  curiosity.  There  are  those  who  wish 
to  know  that  they  may  be  known,  and  this  is  a  low 
vanity.  There  are  also  those  who  wish  to  know,  that 
they  may  sell  their  knowledge,  so  to  speak,  for  money, 
for  honors  [had  the  old  saint  lived  now-a-days,  and 
looked  at  accomplishments  as  understood  and  cultivat- 
ed in  some  of  our  boarding-schools,  would  he  not  have 
added  for  marriage  ?]  and  this  is  low  venality.  But  there 
are  those,  also,  who  wish  to  know,  that  they  may  up- 
build, and  this  is  charity  ;  and  likewise  those  who  wish 


8 

to  know  that  they  may  be  upbuilt,  and  this  is  wisdom. 
Of  those,  the  last  two  only  do  not  pervert  the  real  end 
of  knowledge,  which  is  to  be  good  and  to  do  good." 
Education,  then,  in  both  sexes,  is  a  sacred  duty,  life- 
long and  ever  progressive.  Its  result  in  both  cases  is 
to  develope  and  harmonize  the  native  capacities  and 
qualities : — in  both  sexes  producing  strength  and  beauty, 
nobleness  and  loveliness ;  but,  in  accordance  with  the 
original  constitution  of  their  respective  natures,  the 
strength  and  nobleness  predominant  in  the  one,  the 
beauty  and  loveliness  in  the  other ;  and  in  their  out- 
ward efficacy  both  working  by  action  and  by  influence, 
but  in  the  one  sex  chiefly  by  action,  in  the  other  chiefly 
by  influence. 

Education  is  development,  discipline,  culture;  and 
that  education  is  right  for  woman,  whose  devdopm&d 
unfolds  all  the  stronger  faculties  of  the  soul,  and  which 
does  not  yet  crowd  upon  or  overshadow  the  least  of  her 
sweet  instincts  and  sunny  sympathies — whose  disci- 
pline represses  evil  propensity,  and  attempers  the  soul 
to  firmness  and  consistency,  to  self-control  and  self-reli- 
ance, and  yet  does  no  violence  to  that  delicacy  which 
naturally  marks  her  perceptions,  and  that  freshness 
which  naturally  pervades  her  feelings,  imparting  such 
peculiar  buoyancy  and  glow  to  her  faith,  her  hope,  and 
her  love ;  and  whose  culture  improves  her  tastes,  en- 
larges her  sense  of  the  beautiful,  and  enriches  her  ima- 
gination, and  yet  does  not  enervate  her  sensibilities,  or 
impair  in  any  degree  the  more  serviceable  stamina  of 
the  soul. 

The  first  and  last  object  of  all  true  education,  either 
in  man  or  woman,  is  the  harmonious  fullness  of  being. 
The  law  is  incumbent  upon  every  one,  in  every  condi- 
tion and  sphere,  to  become  all  that  he  was  created 


9 

capable  of  being ;  to  be  alive  with  his  whole  being,  con- 
sciously, happily  alive,  and  for  beneficent  results.  To 
prescribe  the  exact  means  and  exact  manner  by  which 
this  is  to  be  effected,  is  impossible.  All  right  education 
proceeds  on  the  principle  of  cherishing  and  correcting 
nature,  not  of  rooting  it  out  and  supplying  its  place  with 
something  better.  It  must  allow  scope  for  the  exercise 
of  free  will,  and  take  account  of  the  varieties  of  ori- 
ginal structure.  Nature  is  infinite  in  her  combinations, 
and  woman,  no  more  than  man,  was  made  to  be  shaped 
into  one  common  mould.  A  true  and  healthful  train- 
ing no  more  destroys  variety  among  men  and  among 
women,  than  a  true  and  healthful  growth  destroys  va- 
riety among  the  trees  of  the  forest.  There  is  as  much 
diversity  among  the  good  as  among  the  bad,  among  the 
flowers  as  among  the  weeds.  It  is  true,  that  there  are 
certain  qualities  which  are  indispensable  to  every  good 
character,  as  petals  are  to  flowers.  But  it  is  not  the  mere 
presence,  or  the  mere  number,  of  the  petals  that  gives 
the  charm  to  the  flower.  It  is  their  native  coloring  and 
their  native  fragrance.  And  as  these  differ,  not  only 
in  degree  but  in  kind,  so  character  differs  in  all  its  finer 
essences  and  issues.  Nature  will  take  care  of  this.  She 
will  indeed  let  you,  by  your  wise  and  patient  skill,  turn 
and  train  even  many  of  the  evil  roots  she  has  fixed  in 
the  very  core  of  our  being,  so  that  they  shall  grow  up 
not  into  briers,  but  into  roses  in  the  field  of  our  life ; 
and  will  lend  all  her  best  influences  to  your  work,  and 
manifest  herself  most  distinctly  and  graciously  in 
the  result,  if  you  will  deal  genially  by  her,  and  not 
thrust  her  aside,  or  crush  her  down.  If  this  were  better 
heeded,  we  should  soon  hear  less  of  the  complaint,  that 
there  is  so  little  in  even  cultivated  society  that  is  truly 
spontaneous,  and  so  much  that  is  purely  artificial. 


10 

If  right  education  must  have  regard  to  differences 
in  individual  nature,  it  must  much  more  have  regard  to 
differences  in  sexual  nature.  Now,  there  are  three  qua- 
lities which  are  the  natural  elements  of  womanhood— 
they  are,  MODESTY,  TENDERNESS,  and  GRACE.  These  are  a 
credit  to  man,  but  to  woman  they  are  something  more 
than  a  credit — they  are  an  absolute  necessity.  They 
are  set,  by  the  kind  hand  of  Nature,  in  her  very  inmost 
being,  and  it  is  very  difficult,  in  most  cases  actually  im- 
possible, to  pluck  them  out  utterly.  When  this  is  done, 
she  is  unsexed,  and  becomes  a  monster.  These  three 
qualities  are  intimately  related  to  each  other,  and  yet 
each  is  distinct  in  its  manifestation  and  its  effect.  Mo- 
desty is  woman's  natural  safeguard — that  quick  and  de- 
licate feeling  in  the  soul,  which  makes  her  shrink  and 
withdraw  herself  from  every  thing  that  has  danger  in 
it — that  innate  sensibility  which  warns  her  to  shun  the 
first  appearance  of  every  thing  which  is  hurtful,  and 
ever  tends  to  keep  her  within  her  own  bright  and  pure 
womanly  sphere.  Tenderness  is  what  makes  her  sus- 
ceptible to  all  gentle  and  generous  impulses  of  soul  and 
sense — which  gives  quickness  to  her  sympathies,  soft- 
ness to  her  judgments,  devotedness  to  her  love,  and 
pity  to  her  disdain ;  which  ever  inclines  her  to  charity 
rather  than  to  rigor,  to  mercy  rather  than  to  justice. 
Grace  is  that  native  indefinable  quality  of  her  soul, 
which  inspires  a  beautiful  propriety  in  every  word  and 
movement — that  sense  of  the  becoming  which  uncon- 
sciously imparts  something  of  symmetry  to  all  that  she 
says  and  does,  suggestive  of  delicacy,  fineness,  uncon- 
straint,  instinctive  aptitude.  These  three  qualities,  or 
rather  instincts — modesty,  tenderness  and  grace — exist, 
I  say,  more  or  less  in  the  original  constitution  of  every 
woman.  The  most  simple  and  complete  child  of  nature 


11 

Shakespeare  ever  bodied  forth,  Miranda,  reared  by 
her  father  alone  on  an  isle  secluded  from  all  the  world, 
was  merely  the  bright,  consummate,  untainted  flower  of 
these  germs,  which  nature  has  placed  in  every  femi- 
nine soul. 

Above  aught  else,  then,  in  every  system  of  female 
education,  these  should  have  their  true  and  perfect 
growth.  If  checked,  or  in  any  degree  perverted,  the 
feminine  character  inevitably  suffers ;  it  loses  in  loveli- 
ness and  in  influence.  And  yet  how  often  are  they 
checked  or  perverted.  For  modesty,  let  ball-room 
dances  and  ball-room  dresses  answer;  for  tenderness, 
let  tabernacle  diatribes  and  tea-table  scandal  answer ; 
for  grace,  pick  your  way  around  the  stiffnesses,  the  an- 
gularities, and  the  points  of  some  of  our  literary  cote- 
ries, look  at  the  startings  and  the  jerkings,  listen  to  the 
fizziugs  and  the  cracklings  of  the  kind  of  females  there, 
who  seem  to  you  never  to  have  been  young,  and  who, 
you  are  very  sure,  will  never  know  how  to  grow  old, 
and  get  your  answer. 

An  effort  is  often,  perhaps  usually,  made  to  repair 
artificially  any  detriment  done  to  the  vitality  and  form 
of  these  natural  qualities,  but  it  is  never  very  success- 
ful. The  counterfeit,  by  a  discerning  eye,  is  detected 
at  once.  For  the  ingenuousness  of  modesty,  we  have 
boldness ;  for  its  coyness,  prudery.  For  the  delicacy  of 
tenderness,  we  have  daintiness ;  for  its  warmth,  senti- 
mentality. For  the  self-poise  of  grace,  we  have  effort ; 
for  its  self-direction,  mannerism.  Woman,  doubtless, 
should  have  many  acquirements  ;  but  let  her  beware 
of  reckoning  among  these  acquired  modesty,  acquired 
tenderness,  and  acquired  grace.  These  may  be  beauti- 
fied and  enriched ;  but  acquired,  when  once  lost, — never. 
They  are  the  time  vital  essence  of  womanhood,  giving  it 


12 

all  its  bloom  and  perfume,  making  its  mere  effluence 
an  irresistible  influence,  interfusing  all  the  other  qua- 
lities and  all  the  faculties,  and  blending  them  together 
into  one  perfect,  homogeneous,  indivisible  whole.  Being 
instinctive,  they  are  not  actual  virtues  in  themselves, 
but  they  are  necessary  to  the  beauty  and  the  perfection 
of  virtue.  They  set  the  laws  of  conscience,  as  it  were, 
to  a  music,  in  harmony  with  every  good  chord  of  your 
being.  They  make  reverence  no  longer  a  self-interested 
fear ;  but  the  glad,  confiding,  though  yet  trembling,  up- 
rising of  the  heart  towards  the  majesty  of  goodness. 
They  make  stern  duty  genial,  so  that  it  shall  work  upon 
others  not  through  constraint,  but  through  love,  and 
upon  yourselves,  not  through  rigorous  self-exaction,  but 
through  generous  self-sacrifice.  The  masculine  nature, 
too,  has  these  inherent  qualities,  but  not  in  such  large 
proportion.  It  is  this  predominance  in  the  feminine 
soul  that  furnishes  some  ground,  perhaps,  for  the  asser- 
tion that  woman  is  naturally  more  religious  than  man. 
At  all  events,  I  think  I  may  safely  say,  that  she,  with 
her  fair,  calm  spirit,  has  but  to  look  around,  where  he, 
in  his  native  vehemence,  has  to  look  up — that  it  is  her 
privilege  to  say,  almost  intuitively,  of  Duty  : — 

Flowers  laugh  before  thee  on  their  beds, 
And  fragrance  in  thy  footing  treads ; 

while  his  well-deliberated  words  are  : — 

Thou  dost  preserve  the  stars  from  wrong ; 

And  the  most  ancient  heavens,  through  Thee,  are  fresh  and  strong.* 

I  have  now  spoken  of  certain  qualities  which  every 
woman  has  by  nature,  which  compose  the  very  essence 
of  her  true  womanhood,  and  which  it  is  supremely  ne- 

*  Wordsworth.     Ode  to  Duty. 


13 

cessary  for  her  to  cherish  in  all  their  perfection.  But 
these,  indispensable  as  they  are,  do  not  constitute  the 
stamina  of  her  character  as  a  probationary  being,  with 
high  responsibilities  and  hard  trials  to  meet  here  on  the 
earth.  For  this  we  must  look  to  the  faculties  which 
she  shares  with  man,  her  fellow  probationer — to  her 
intellect,  her  imagination,  her  will.  These  must  be  ex- 

/  O  ' 

panded,  strengthened,  disciplined,  regulated.  She  has 
a  conscience,  too,  and  that  must  be  enlightened,  and 
armed  with  all  its  rightful  power.  All  these  faculties 
of  her  being  ought  to  be  educated ;  yes,  if  you  will, 
educated  up  to  the  very  highest  degree,  but  educated 
in  harmony  with  each  other,  and,  chief  of  all,  educated 
in  harmony  with  her  native  attributes. 

Expand  and  furnish  the  intellect,  so  that  she  shall 
understand  the  actual  scope  and  relations  of  things,  form 
correct  judgments,  think  deeply  and  discerningly,  and 
talk  intelligently  and  aptly ;  but  no  such  unnatural 
stimulus  should  be  applied  to  the  intellectual  part  of 
her  being,  as  to  make  that  the  central  seat  of  her  life, 
draw  away  and  lock  up  here  the  subtile  currents  of  her 
womanly  nature,  and  constitute  that  peculiar  produc- 
tion which  every  body  has  heard  of  and  nobody  loves, 
"  a  strong-minded  female."  We  hear  of  the  sad  power  of 


-abstruse  research  to  steal 


From  man's  own  nature  all  the  natural  man.  * 

The  stealth  of  the  natural  woman  is  a  thousand  times 
more  melancholy. 

I  have  said  that  the  imagination  must  be  culti- 
vated. It  is  a  noble  faculty.  Bonaparte  said  that 
imagination  rules  the  world.  The  sense  of  beauty 
resides  there — that  which  colors,  exalts,  etherializes 

*  Coleridge.     Ode  to  Dejection. 


14 

— that  which  furnishes  faith  and  hope  and  love  with 
their  inspiring  ideal — that  which  lends  enthusiasm 
its  celestial  wings — that  which  quickens  and  vivifies  the 
great  law  of  association,  brings  your  own  soul  into  com- 
munion with  the  spirit  of  nature,  invests  the  most  com- 
mon things  of  life  with  a  poetry, 

Finds  tongues  in  trees,  books  in  the  running  brooks ; 
Sermons  in  stones,  and  good  in  every  thing.* 

Cultivate,  then,  imagination.  Woman  needs  it  no  less 
than  man,  and  it  is  even  more  congenial  with  both  her 
duties  and  her  nature.  It  will  make  the  happiness 
already  possessed  all  the  more  happy,  and  open  a  thou- 
sand new  sources  of  delight  unknown  before.  And  yet, 
if  this  faculty  be  not  wisely  cultivated,  if  it  become 
over-excited,  and  acquire  a  growth  disproportionate  to 
that  of  the  reflective  and  the  moral  faculties,  it  produces 
the  most  baneful  effect  upon  the  whole  being.  It  can- 
not be  allowed  to  luxuriate,  without  inducing  the  con- 
sequences of  all  luxury,  enervation  and  enfeeblement, 
— without  unfitting  for  all  the  sober  realities  and  prac- 
tical duties  of  life,  and  turning  life  itself  into  an  idle 
re  very. 

The  will,  which  is  less  a  faculty  than,  like  instinct,  a 
working  living  principle,  must  be  strengthened  and  re- 
gulated, for  it  is  the  executive  power  of  the  whole  being. 
I  mean  by  it  that  energy  of  the  soul  which  gives  self- 
mastery.  This  in  woman,  as  in  man,  is  indispensable  to 
the  formation  of  positive  noble  character. 

Unless  above  himself  lie  can 

Erect  himself,  ho\v  mean  a  thing  is  man  ! 

It  was  said  of  the  whole  race.     She  who  has  not  ac- 

*  Shakspear?.    As  You  Like  it     Act  I.  Scene  II. 


15 

quired  this  power,  who  is  wont  to  resign  herself  pas- 
sively to  natural  impulse,  or  agreeable  feeling,  however 
good-natured  that  impulse  or  feeling  may  be,  has  not, 
any  more  than  ;the  bird  of  the  air,  the  dignity  of  a  mo- 
ral being.  It  may  be  said,  that  it  is  not  imparted  but 
self-education  which  gives  this  power.  This,  undeniably, 
to  a  large  extent  is  true.  Yet  that  outward  discipline 
may  perform  a  very  efficient  part  in  this  process,  no  one 
who  bethinks  himself  of  the  Spartan  system  and  its  re- 
sults, can  doubt.  But,  however  desirable  and  necessary 
strength  of  will  may  be,  when  it  acquires  such  strenuous- 
ness  as  to  find  a  positive  pleasure  in  unconditional  vo- 
lition, that  is  to  say,  when  it  becomes  wilfulness  and 
rules  for  the  mere  sake  of  ruling,  it  becomes  a  gross 
deformity.  Its  work  is  not  self-control,  but  self-suffi- 
ciency— a  self-sufficiency  forbidding  all  dependence,  and 
repelling  all  sympathy.  There  is,  then,  a  necessity  that 
will  should  be  trained  with  reference  to  all  the  sensibi- 
lities and  capabilities  of  woman's  nature. 

And  so  too  of  conscience.  Conscience  is  the  voice 
of  moral  law,  and  all  law  is  strict  and  exacting  in  its 
very  nature.  The  conscience  cannot  be  too  fully 
brought  out,  if  brought  out  in  harmony  with  the  other 
portions  of  our  being,  nor  can  its  dictates  be  too  impli- 
citly obeyed.  But,  supreme  within  its  own  sphere,  as 
it  is,  it  was  never  meant  to  maintain  constant  dictation. 
It  has  authority,  but  it  is  too  royal  to  be  jealous  of  the 
loving  instincts  of  the  soul.  It  imposes  a  law  upon  a 
child  to  obey  his  parents,  but  it  is  well  pleased  that  the 
child  should  obey  his  parents  spontaneously,  in  answer 
to  the  promptings  of  his  own  loving  nature.  They 
wrong  conscience  greatly,  who  make  her  a  despot  in- 
stead of  a  guardian,  and  can  find  praise  for  no  act  that 
she  herself  does  not  exclusively  direct.  The  very  per- 


16 

fection,  too,  of  all  right  doing,  is  doing  right  not  only 
conscientiously,  but  lovingly — not  only  obediently,  but 
freely,  impulsively,  gladly.  "  If  ye  love  me,  keep  my 
commandments."  It  is  the  chief  glory  of  woman  that, 
excelling,  as  she  does,  in  the  sympathetic  part  of  her 
nature,  she  is  so  peculiarly  capable  of  this.  Any  sys- 
tem of  moral  education  which  impairs  this,  or  leaves  it 
out  of  account,  does  her  a  most  unnatural  wrong. 

I  repeat,  then,  that  all  these  faculties — intellect,  ima- 
gination, will,  and  conscience — must  be  educated  harmo- 
niously with  each  other,  and  above  all,  harmoniously 
with  the  three  special  elements  of  feminine  nature.  If 
this  be  done,  those  elements  will  only  receive  additional 
fullness  and  lustre.  Her  modesty  will  be  dignified 
by  her  discerning  intellect  and  her  self-directing  will ; 
her  grace  will  be  glorified  by  her  vivifying  imagin- 
ation ;  and  her  tenderness  will  be  dignified,  and  glo- 
rified, and  sanctified  by  her  enlightening  and  hallowing 
conscience..  And  thus,  simply  by  the  wise  development 
of  her  own  proper  nature,  with  the  promised  grace  of 
God,  we  have  a  "  spirit,  yet  a  woman  too  " — 

A  perfect  woman,  nobly  planned, 
To  warn,  to  comfort,  and  command, 
And  yet  a  spirit  still,  and  bright, 
With  something  of  an  angel  light* 

I  have  spoken  of  woman's  capability.  I  have  some- 
thing to  say  of  her  responsibility.  If  not  outwardly  so 
arduous  and  imposing  as  that  of  man,  it  is  yet  intrinsi- 
cally more  sacred  and  sublime.  I  will  not  discuss 
woman's  appropriate  sphere.  The  praters  upon  this 
subject  dishonor  her.  She  fixes  her  sphere  for  herself, 
or  rather  her  own  true  nature  fixes  it  for  her.  She 
dwells  not  in  the  suburbs  of  man's  good  pleasure  here, 

*  Wordsworth.     A  Portrait. 


17 

but  in  her  own  high  instincts  finds  her  own  "  true  fixed 
and  resting  quality."  Woman's  predominating  sensi- 
bility holds  her  chiefly  to  domestic  duties,  as  man's  pre- 
dominating energy  holds  him  chiefly  to  public  duties. 
I  speak  of  the  main  bent  and  the  natural  province.  Of 
course,  man  has  a  share  in  domestic  life,  and  woman, 
through  society,  a  share  in  public  life,  and  through  au- 
thorship, too,  if  she  feels  impelled  to  resort  to  it, — 
though  I  have  the  authority  of  that  most  excellent 
judge  of  woman,  Mrs.  Jameson,  for  saying,  that  it  is 
most  certain  that  of  the  women  who  have  ventured  into 
the  public  path  of  literature,  three  fourths  have  done  it 
because  placed  in  a  painful  or  needy  position  in  respect 
to  domestic  life. 

The  responsibility  of  Woman,  then,  at  home,  is  her 
primary  responsibility,  and  I  fearlessly  say  that  there 
is  no  responsibility  on  earth  like  it.  I  say  it,  because 
she  has  the  chief  custody  and  control  of  that  period  of 
human  life  in  which,  more  than  any  other,  the  character 
is  formed  not  only  for  this  world,  but  for  an  unspeak- 
ably blessed,  or  an  awfully  cursed  immortality.  Re- 
sponsibility !  Where,  now,  in  the  arena  of  public  life, 
from  centre  to  circumference,  is  there  such  responsibi- 
lity, even  so  far  as  regards  matters  of  this  world,  as  was 
that  of  Mary,  the  mother  of  Washington,  or  of  Letitia, 
the  mother  of  Napoleon  ?  What  man  '  living  has 
wrought  a  more  terrible  work  than  was  wrought  by  the 
caressing  and  flattering,  raging  and  cursing,  mother  of 
Byron  ?  Napoleon  knew  men  well.  None  better.  His 
words  were :  "  The  future  character  of  a  child  is  always 
the  work  of  its  mother ; "  and  to  Madame  Campan  he 
said :  "  Be  it  your  care  to  train  up  mothers  who  shall 
know  how  to  educate  their  children."  Tacitus  says  of 


18 

Agricola :  "  He  governed  his  family,  which  many  find 
to  be  a  harder  task  than  to  govern  a  province."  What 
would  have  been  the  words,  had  Tacitus  had  an  under- 
standing, too,  of  Christian  responsibilities  ?  "  Unhappy 
is  the  man,"  says  Jean  Paul  Bichter,  "  for  whom  his 
own  mother  has  not  made  all  other  mothers  venerable." 
Where  is  the  man,  and  where  the  woman,  whose  very 
heart's  heart  does  not  quiver  in  response  to  that  ? 

The  mother,  whether  she  is  directly  sensible  of  it 
or  not,  is  the  educator  of  the  strongest  and  most  per- 
manent part  of  our  humanity,  the  sympathetic  and 
moral  nature — the  very  part,  too,  which  is  the  most 
complex  and  the  most  sensitive,  and  the  most  difficult 
to  brace  and  adjust  to  perfect  harmony.  The  greatest 
obstacle  that  education  has  to  contend  against  is  wilful- 
ness.  This  evil  is  inborn  in  the  very  nature  of  man, 
and  manifests  itself  in  full  force  in  the  very  earliest 
period  of  life,  and  in  an  almost  unlimited  variety  of 
forms.  It  is  no  small  thing  to  subdue  it  at  all ;  but  it 
is  a  great  thing,  often  a  thing  requiring  a  wisdom  ex- 
celling that  of  the  Seven  Wise  Men  of  Greece,  to  sub- 
due it  without  doing  lasting  injury  to  all  of  the  finer 
qualities  of  the  soul.  And  yet  what  bitter  discords 
from  within,  and  what  hard  reverses  from  without, 
shall  come,  if  it  be  not  subdued.  There  are  certain 
states  of  the  child's  mind  in  which  its  indulgence  in  the 
merest  trifle  may  commence  an  unhealthful  movement 
of  the  soul,  which  will  last  as  long  as  life  lasts.  How 
few  are  there  who  fully  realize  that  a  trifle  to  them  is 
no  trifle  to  a  child — that  the  cheapest  plaything  may 
be  a  child's  kingdom. 

What  an  incalculable  effect  upon  man's  character 
has  a  truthful  disposition ; — and  yet  this  invariably  has 
its  origin  in  the  earliest  period  of  life.  I  mean  not 


19 

simply  the  habit  of  truth-telling,  for  that,  when  it 
springs  from  the  fear  of  discovery,  as  in  children  it  is 
too  often  made  to  do,  is  of  little  worth.  I  mean  the 
spirit  of  truth — that  which  manifests  itself  in  thought 
and  in  action,  as  well  as  in  word,  and  from  which  come 
frankness,  openness,  good  faith,  honesty,  in  one  word, 
sincerity — sincerity  to  one's  self,  sincerity  to  mankind 
in  general,  sincerity  in  social  relations,  sincerity  in  busi- 
ness, sincerity  in  pleasure.  This  loyalty  to  truth  is  a 
sentiment  which  the  mother  alone  can  thoroughly  in- 
spire ;  and  yet  how  often,  alas,  is  it,  that  she,  in  her 
thoughtlessness  or  her  ignorance,  contents  herself  with 
merely  a  verbal  conformity,  and  heeds  not  the  saddest 
form  of  lying — "  the  lie,"  as  Bacon  says,  "  that  sinketh 
in,"  and  becomes  part  of  the  character. 

The  child  is  an  admiring  being.  "  Heaven  lies 
about  us  in  our  infancy,"  and  bright  hues  invest  every 
thing.  "  Tell  me  what  you  admire,"  says  Carlyle,  "  and 
I  will  tell  you  what  manner  of  man  you  are  ; "  and  in 
all  education  there  is  nothing  so  important  as  this  teach- 
ing what  to  admire,  and  why  to  admire.  It  is  error  or 
neglect  in  this  part  of  early  training,  by  the  mother, 
that,  more  than  any  thing  else,  produces  the  false  stand- 
ards and  false  tastes  which  so  many,  in  these  artificial 
times,  carry  with  them  through  life,  and  which  make 
the  lesson  so  hard  to  learn,  that  the  simplest  and  cheap- 
est pleasures  are  the  truest  and  most  precious. 

And  so  of  almost  every  phase  of  the  child's  charac- 
ter ;  it  is,  in  great  measure,  the  result  of  the  faithfulness 
or  the  unfaithfulness,  the  wisdom  or  the  folly,  of  the 
mother.  What  responsibility  has  man  to  meet,  that 
can  exceed  either  in  dignity  or  in  difficulty  the  right 
training  of  an  immortal  spirit  ?  What  can  require  the 


20 

more  complete  development  of  every  high  faculty  of 
the  soul  ?  A  weak-hearted  and  weak-minded  mother 
is  the  saddest  of  all  sights  the  sun  shines  upon. 

The  power  of  woman,  too,  in  her  other  domestic  re- 
lations, demands  the  highest  cultivation  of  her  nature. 
She  was  made  to  be  the  light  of  the  whole  household : 


Alight 

Shining  within,  -when  all  without  is  night!* 

It  is  her  peculiar  privilege  to  live  away  from  the  world's 
sharp  strife.  She  has  no  profession  to  warp  the  even- 
ness of  her  mind,  or  cares  of  business  to  tarnish  the 
freshness  of  her  soul.  Her  own  peculiar  trials  she 
doubtless  has,  for  trial  is  incident  to  every  human  lot. 
There  is  a  mildew  that  settles  upon  all  hearts  not  well 
ordered,  wherever  found  beneath  the  skies.  But,  if 
woman's  heart  be  well  ordered,  there  is  nothing  which 
should  hinder  or  mar  its  full  blossoming ;  for  her  heart, 
like  man's,  is  in  God's  world,  which  is  as  full  of  rich, 
pure,  sweet  influences,  as  the  morning  is  of  dew-drops ; 
and  yet  is  not  so  near  the  broad  highway  of  life  as  to 
be  bruised  by  its  violence,  or  soiled  by  its  dust,  or 
withered  by  its  glare.  She  was  made  to  live  in  an 
atmosphere  of  light  and  of  love,  wooing  from  her  all 
the  in-born  sweetnesses  of  her  nature,  opening  her  the 
more  completely  to  divine  refreshings  from  on  high,  and 
calling  out  odors  of  faith,  and  hope,  and  charity,  which 
shall  operate  as  a  healing  balm  and  holy  stimulus  upon 
all  around.  Woman,  if  she  be  truly  woman,  is,  within 
her  own  household,  a  vital  elemental  force,  evermore 
radiating  ethereal  life  and  energy.  She  is  a  Presence 
as  well  as  a  Power,  and  achieves  by  what  she  is  as  well 
as  what  she  does.  She  inspires  unawares.  In  the  light 

*  Rogers.    Human  Life. 


21 

of  her  placid  strength,  a  faith  in  human  nature,  and  in 
the  possibility  of  all  grand  things,  grows  we  trow  not 
how.  Public  opinion  pales  into  weakness  and  meanness 
before  her  high  ideal,  and  we  are  slaves  no  longer.  Pier 
subtle  love,  her  magnetic  enthusiasm,  cherishes  into 
more  genial  life  the  motive  that  shall  prompt  brave 
endeavor,  and  stay  the  spirit  in  the  very  heat  of  the 
strife,  like  the  murmur  of  far-off  music.  She  endears, 
and,  in  endearing,  ennobles.  She  transfuses  her  temper 
to  our  souls  without  effort,  as  she  paints  her  image  on 
our  eyes.  There  is  no  such  spell  as  comes  from  her 
sweetness  and  unassuming  strength.  Books  can  instruct 
and  entertain,  pictures  and  statues  may  bring  beauty, 
and  hirelings  may  duly  care  for  the  house ;  but  love 
that  floods  cannot  quench,  resilient  hope,  outshining  joy, 
sweet  trust  and  holy  fear,  bright  honor,  faithfulness, 
gentleness,  charity,  and,  chief  of  all,  the  impassioned 
feeling  that  impels  the  strenuous  will ; — these  are  the 
"  rib  of  the  man,"  and  from  these,  moulded  in  living 
loveliness,  his  destined  help-meet  sprang  to  rouse  him 
and  gird  him  to  all  noble  daring  and  doing,  to  make 
life  rich  and  duty  glorious,  so  that  he  shall  be  a  true- 
hearted  warrior  here  on  the  earth,  while  yet  with  her  a 
rejoicing  co-traveller  toward  the  skies.  We  best  learn  the 
unsuspected  might  of  a  being  like  this,  when  we  try  the 
desolateness  that  sinks  like  night  upon  the  home  where 
once  her  presence  shone  and  now  is  seen  no  more.  In 
view  of  what  woman  thus  may  be,  and  ofttimes  is,  re- 
plete, full-charactered  and  heavenly  as  the  morning  star, 
alas,  that  there  should  ever  be  occasion  for  such  a 
cry  as  that  of  Milton's  against  "  that  unspeakable 
weariness  and  despair  of  all  sociable  delight,  which 
turn  the  blessed  ordinance  of  God'  into  a  sore  evil 
under  the  sun,  or  at  least  to  a  familiar  mischief — a 


22 

drooping  and  disconsolate  household — captivity  with- 
out refuge  or  redemption." 

But  the  influence  of  a  true  woman  is  not  confined 
to  those  of  her  own  household.  She  forms  the  grace 
and  attraction  of  all  social  life.  In  the  days  of  chi- 
valry, her 

bright  eyes 

Rained  influence,  and  judged  the  prize.* 

She  it  was  that  inspired,  to  use  the  language  of  Burke, 
"that  generous  loyalty  to  rank  and  sex,  that  proud  sub- 
mission, that  dignified  obedience,  that  subordination  of 
the  heart,  which  kept  alive,  even  in  servitude  itself,  the 
spirit  of  an  exalted  freedom ;  that  untaught  grace  of 
life,  that  sensibility  of  principle,  that  chastity  of  honor, 
which  felt  a  stain  like  a  wound,  wrhich  inspired  courage, 
whilst  it  mitigated  ferocity,  which  ennobled  whatever 
it  touched,  and  under  which  vice  itself  lost  half  its  evil 
by  losing  all  its  grossness."  f  And  she  certainly  has  lost 
no  power,  as  men  have  advanced  in  civilization  and 
Christianity.  She  yet  wins,  and  leads,  and  judges  with 
her  sweet,  still  conclusions,  and  nothing  which  she  in 
very  truth  despises  and  repels,  can  stand.  She  holds 
the  keys  of  social  intercourse,  and  adjusts  to  her  own 
will  what  shall  be  the  received  standard  of  propriety 
and  honor.  Men,  as  in  knightly  times,  are  not  only 
ready  to  serve  her,  but  they  look  to  her  to  show  them 
how  she  will  be  served  ;  and  this  she  does  not  by  ar- 
bitrary dictate,  not  often  even  by  conscious  design,  but 
by  an  outflowing  movement,  a  bright  benign  exhal- 
ing of  mind  and  soul,  which,  though  impalpable,  is  not 
to  be  ignored  or  withstood.  "  Whatever  may  be  the 
customs  and  laws  of  a  country,"  says  a  French  writer, 

*  Milton.     L' Allegro, 
f  Reflections  on  the  French  Revolution. 


23 

"  women  always  give  the  tone  to  morals."  This  is  true ; 
and  there  has  never  yet  been  a  time  of  public  degrada- 
tion, in  which  women  of  high  mark  in  society  have  not 
played  a  prominent  part.  I  do  not  pretend  that  social 
life  is  pervaded,  as  it  might  be,  by  the  redeeming  influ- 
ence of  woman's  spirit ;  but  she  has  reason  to  reproach 
herself,  if  it  is  not. 

Woman,  too,  if  she  will,  has  her  post  in  literature 
—a  post  recognized  as  hers,  not  by  courtesy,  but  by 
right,  and  most  worthily  is  she  now  fulfilling  it.  I 
count  it  one  of  the  most  cheering  auspices  of  the 
times,  that  her  voice  is  in  such  large  measure  en- 
tering English  and  American  literature.  It  min- 
gles among  the  fierce  polemics  of  the  day,  "  as  the 
lute  pierceth  through  the  cymbal's  clash,"  by  its  very 
gentleness  tempering,  and  refining,  and  beautifying 
all.  It  is  true,  and  doubtless  always  will  be  true,  so 
long  as  woman  retains  her  retiring  womanly  nature,  that 
female  authorship  does  not  often  proceed  from  sponta- 
neous impulse,  and  that  it  does  often  come  from  wrongs 
too  deep  to  be  forgiven,  from  regrets  too  bitter  to  be 
forgotten,  from  repinings  too  sharp  to  be  borne,  or  from 
necessities  too  cruel  to  be  resisted,  and  that  aberrations 
and  harsh  discords  not  seldom  arise  therefrom,  and  show 
themselves  in  what  she  gives  out  to  the  world ;  but 
it  is  none  the  less  certain,  that  the  general  effect  of  her 
utterance  through  books  is,  and  always  must  be,  in  har- 
mony with  the  delicate  tones  of  her  native  soul.  Tens 
of  thousands  of  women,  too,  are  called  upon  to  be  the 
public  teachers  and  guides  of  childhood  and  youth,  and 
have  thereby  a  power  to  exercise  an  influence  upon 
future  national  character,  scarcely  to  be  estimated.  All 
of  the  great  benevolent  enterprises  of  the  day  depend 
upon  woman  greatly  for  their  support,  and  she  is  the 


24 

almost  exclusive  minister  of  the  common  charities  of 
daily  life.  Upon  her  judgment  here,  as  well  as  upon 
her  spirit,  depends  a  vast  amount  of  social  good  or  evil. 
In  short,  there  is  no  limit  to  woman's  influence  and  re- 
sponsibility. There  is  no  condition  of  life  in  which  she 
is  precluded  from  these,  and  none  in  which  their  exercise 
may  not  employ  the  fullest  powers  of  her  nature,  even 
when  developed  in  the  most  complete  measure.  Espe- 
cially is  this  true  in  our  own  country,  where  woman 
enjoys  higher  consideration  and  greater  freedom  of  ac- 
tion, than  in  any  other  nation  of  the  world,  and  where, 
too,  the  very  existence  of  the  government  depends  upon 
the  sustained  aspiration  and  virtue  of  the  people.  In 
her  hands,  whether  she  feels  it  or  not,  lie  the  destinies 
of  the  Republic. 

I  have  now  spoken  of  the  kind  of  education  woman 
should  receive,  and  of  its  solemn  and  yet  glorious  im- 
port to  her  and  to  the  world.  A  sensible  advance,  I 
believe,  is  every  year  made  throughout  the  land  towards 
this  high  standard.  If  such  an  advance  there  really  is, 
we  shall  in  good  time  hear  fewer  complaints,  that  in 
high  life  there  are  to  be  found  so  many  brilliant  crea- 
tures of  fairest  face  and  form,  complete  in  every  out- 
ward charm  and  adornment,  superlative  in  grace,  ex- 
quisite in  tact,  airy  in  spirits,  sprightly  in  converse,  and 
radiant  with  smiles  ;  and  yet  conquest  their  only 
thought,  and  self  their  only  admiration,  caring  only  to 
keep  decently  up  to  the  world's  mark  of  virtue,  turning 
social  communion  into  a  conventional  piece  of  acting, 
and  reducing  all  their  high  means  of  influence  to  the 
service  of  a  morbid  excitement,  and  the  gratification  of 
a  heartless  vanity ; — and  that  in  middle  life  there  is  so 
much  wretched  slavery  to  outward  appearances,  so  much 
of  carking  care  and  calculating  anxiety  to  imitate  the 


25 

extravagance  of  wealthier  neighbors,  so  much  impover- 
ishing of  mind,  closing  up  of  soul  and  hardening  of  spirit 
for  the  mere  tinsel  of  life,  so  much  wearing  away  of  the 
heart-strings  and  spoiling  of  affection  with  petty  vex. 
ation  and  capricious  humor,  so  much  wasting  aimless- 
ness  and  wasted  activity,  so  much  speech  spoken  that 
is  not  worth  the  speaking,  so  much  work  wrought  that 
is  not  worth  the  working,  so  much  life  lived  that  is  not 
worth  the  living. 


KEPORT  OF  THE  EXAMINING  COMMITTEE  FOR 
THE  YEAE  1855. 

In  the  examination  which  has  just  closed,  some  of  the  pro- 
cesses which  are  employed  in  female  education,  in  this  insti- 
tution, have  been  exhibited,  and  some  of  the  results  to  which 
those  processes  have  led.  One  thing  has  been  made  obvious 
to  us,  but  not  so  much  from  the  examination  itself,  as  from  the 
general  aspect  of  the  several  classes,  as  it  has  progressed — and 
it  must  have  struck  every  observer — we  refer  to  those  results 
of  good  discipline  and  careful  training,  as  to  habits  and  man- 
ners, which  are  so  indispensable  in  an  institution  of  this  kind. 
The  deportment  to  which  we  refer  could  not  be  the  result  of  a 
few  days'  drilling,  in  anticipation  of  the  occasion.  It  would 
certainly  betray  itself.  It  would  not  sit  so  naturally  and  grace- 
fully upon  its  wearers.  The  carriage,  the  expressions  of  the 
countenance,  the  tones  of  the  voice,  are  often  a  sure  index  to 
the  influences,  which  give  type  to  character.  Somewhat 
in  these  regards,  so  far  as  this  institution  is  concerned,  may  be 
owing  to  the  graceful  evolutions  of  the  gymnasium  attached, 
and  to  that  high  cultivation  in  music,  of  which  we  have  had  so 
many  creditable  exhibitions  during  the  progress  of  the  examin- 
ation, but  particularly  in  the  concert  at  the  close ;  but  far  more, 
we  feel  convinced,  is  owing  to  the  presence  of  a  refined  Chris- 
tian family,  and  to  models  worthy  of  imitation,  in  a  band  of 
kind-hearted,  devoted  teachers.  We  have  seen,  and  rejoiced 
at,  the  spirit  which  pervades  the  daily  life  of  this  great  family 
school.  It  is  no  small  part  of  education  to  teach  young  persons? 
removed  from  the  restraints  and  the  partialities  of  home,  and 


27 

brought  into  contact  with  others  of  their  own  age,  but  marked 
by  every  variety  of  disposition  and  character,  to  know  and  con- 
trol themselves,  and  pay  a  proper  regard  to  the  rights,  and 
even  the  prejudices  of  their  associates.  The  indirect  and  un- 
designed arrangements  and  influences  of  a  seminary  may  have 
as  much,  or  even  more,  to  do  with  it,  than  those  which  appear 
prominently,  in  its  external  discipline  and  course  of  study. 

But  we  are  satisfied  that  these  fruits  of  Christian  example, 
refined  manners,  a  kind  and  faithful  discipline,  apparent  in 
this  school,  could  never  have  been  secured,  if  the  course  of 
study  did  not  give  the  permanence  which  it  does  to  religious 
instruction.  The  Bible  read  through  annually,  its  critical  study, 
together  with  the  study  of  such  works  as  Butler's  Analogy, 
and  the  Evidences  of  Christianity,  afford  sufficient  evidence 
that  the  conductors  of  this  institution  understand  upon  what 
means  they  must  chiefly  rely  to  impart  to  it  its  proper  pervad- 
ing spirit,  and  in  laying  the  foundations  of  that  character, 
which  will  secure  the  future  happiness  and  usefulness  of  their 
pupils. 

The  Committee  have  been  exceedingly  pleased  with  the 
evidence  which  this  examination  has  afforded ;  that  it  is  the 
object  of  the  instruction  given  here  really  to  educate  the  mind ; 
that  the  teachers  do  not  merely  regard  the  mind  as  a  receptacle 
to  be  filled  with  the  largest  possible  amount  of  the  details  of 
knowledge,  but  as  having  faculties  which  it  should  be  their 
aim  to  develope,  discipline  and  strengthen.  A  course  of  aca- 
demic study  can  be  said  to  be  well  finished  only  when  it  has 
been  the  means  of  teaching  the  scholar  how  to  use  his  faculties, 
and  to  go  on  in  the  acquisition  of  knowledge. 

We  are  also  satisfied  that  this  examination  has  not  been  a 
mere  stage  performance,  or  parade,  but  has  been  fair  and 
thorough,  and  has  enabled  us  to  judge  of  the  real  progress  of 
the  pupils.  It  has  reflected  great  credit  on  the  principals,  and 
the  professors  and  teachers,  in  all  the  departments.  We  believe 
that  a  young  lady,  taking  the  full  course  at  this  institution, 
enjoys  advantages  for  intellectual  cultivation,  hardly,  if  at  all, 
inferior  to  those  enjoyed  by  our  sons  at  many  of  the  colleges. 
We,  therefore,  cordially  commend  it  to  all  parents  who  would 


28 

secure  a  school  for  their  daughters,  where  their  minds,  their 
manners,  and  their  morals  will  be  carefully  guarded  and 
cultivated. 

JAMES  M.  MACDONALD,  D.D. 

H.  HUMPHREY,  D.D. 

J.  BRACE,  D.D. 

SAMUEL  HARRIS,  D.D. 

PittsfieU],  August  22,  1855. 


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